Friday, September 17, 2010

Remember my earlier post about growing golden beets? Well, today I'm going to let you in on a huge gardening secret! How to grow tomatoes!!!

1. Order seeds.2. Give them to your parents and their "all-garden" backyard. Yeah, there isn't room for a lawn chair or anything. It is all Southern California, all-garden backyard.3. Dad plants, encourages growth, waters, transplants, stakes, and grows the tomatoes.4. Mom waters the plants and runs the heck out of the backyard when she sees a tomato bug.5. Voicemail says, "Hi Mary, This is your Mom. We have tomatoes if you want to come over."

My folks will celebrate their 43 wedding anniversary next month! My dad is 78 and my mom is 67. My mom always says,"11 years apart, just like Prince Charles and Diana." Um, Mom, that one didn't quite work...

Unfortunately, Southern California had a really gloomy and cold summer. My dad only got one round of tomatoes this year...and his cucumbers definitely didn't give him a bumper crop. But it was all delicious!

I know people were canning, making tarts, salads, and so much more. But here is my recipe:

Ingredients and tools:

Tomato

Sea Salt

Hand or knife

Eat tomato from hand with a dash of salt, or cut up and eat more dignified.

Thanks Mom and Dad for growing such great tomatoes this year! Let's do it again next year!- mary

So you're also a member of the brown-thumbed-offspring-of-green-thumbed-Asian-parents club? I really should have done what you did. This summer was hell on my tomatoes, not that they do well when summer's hot here, either! Next year, I'm enlisting Mom's help. Congrats to your parents and 43 years!

Lol Mary.. that was such a closely guarded secret! We all do that.. my mom jokes about us daughters being 'thieves' whenever we're home. Haha.. I was excited when I saw the pic of your mom & dad.. the pessimoms/tree behind! I love pessimoms and there were many fruits in the picture (hehe.. I enlarged it to confirm that those were pessimoms).